The Real Charlotte. 233 



energy of life, that talked on of harvest, and would not hear 

 of graves. 



That the commonplace gloom of a funeral should have 

 plunged his general ideas into despondency is, however, too 

 much to believe of even such a supersensitive mind as 

 Christopher's. It gave a darker wash of colour to what was 

 already clouded, and probably it was its trite, terrific sneer 

 at human desire and human convention that deadened his 

 heart from time to time with fatalistic suggestion ; but it 

 was with lesser facts than these that he strove. Miss 

 Mullen depositing hysterically a wreath upon her friend's 

 coffin, in the acute moment of lowering it into the grave ; 

 Miss Mullen sitting hysterically beside him in the carriage 

 as he drove her back to Tally Ho in the eyes of all men ; 

 Miss Mullen lying, still hysterical, on her drawing-room sofa, 

 holding in her black-gloved hand a tumbler of sal volatile 

 and water, and eventually commanding her emotion suffi- 

 ciently to ask him to bring her, that afternoon, a few books 

 and papers, to quiet her nerves, and to rob of its weariness 

 the bad night that would inevitably be her portion. 



It was opposite these views, which, as far as tears went, 

 might well be called dissolving, that his mind chiefly took 

 its stand, in unutterable repugnance, and faint endeavour to 

 be blind to his own convictions. He was being chased. 

 Now that he knew it he wondered how he could ever have 

 been unaware of it ; it was palpable to anyone, and he felt 

 in advance what it would be like to hear the exultant wind- 

 ing of the huntsman's horn, if the quarry were overtaken. 

 The position was intolerable from every rational point of 

 view ; Christopher with his lethargic scorn of social tyrannies 

 and stale maxims of class, could hardly have believed that 

 he was sensible of so many of these points, and despised 

 himself accordingly. Julia Duffy's hoarse voice still tor- 

 mented his ear in involuntary spasms of recollection, keep- 

 ing constantly before him the thought of the afternoon of 

 four days ago, when he and Francie had been informed of 

 the destiny allotted to them. The formless and unques- 

 tioned dream through which he had glided had then been 

 broken up, like some sleeping stretch of river when the jaws 

 of the dredger are dashed into it, and the mud is dragged 

 to light, and the soiled waves carry the outrage onward in 



